Exam Of Demjanjuk Id Questioned

April 9, 1987|United Press International

JERUSALEM -- The defense in John Demjanjuk`s war-crimes trial on Wednesday questioned the skills and independence of a historian for endorsing an identification card implicating the retired U.S. autoworker.

Demjanjuk defense attorney Mark O`Connor succeeded in getting prosecution- witness professor Wolfgang Scheffler, an expert on Nazi documents, to reveal it was the first time he had examined the question of a document`s authenticity in such detail.

Testifying Tuesday about the card carrying Demjanjuk`s name, photograph and physical description, Scheffler, 57, said: ``It would be nothing short of a sensation if this identification card was not authentic. This is the genuine identification card of someone who is at Trawniki.``

The court awaits the result of forensic tests on the authenticity of the card, allegedly issued at the Trawniki Nazi training camp.

The defense contends the card, supplied by Moscow, is a forgery by the KGB aimed at framing the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk. The prosecution says it establishes he was a SS-trained death-camp guard in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Demjanjuk, 67, is accused of being ``Ivan the Terrible`` -- a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp in Poland who whipped and beat prisoners into the gas chambers where some 850,000 people perished.

Scheffler, 57, an expert on Nazi documents for the West German Foreign Office who has testified at some 50 trials of suspected Nazis, said usually the authenticity of documents was not in question.